Greedy Peterson out at Providence

The Greedy Peterson era in Providence is over and with him goes the player who most symbolized what the 2009-10 Providence Friars were all about. He was often breath-taking, more frequently maddening, disinterested in defending, and proof that with a year of hard work and focus athletes can turn into scorers under this coaching staff.
What this staff couldn’t instill in him was the instinctual part of the game, the intangible plays that smart players make throughout the course of the game that help win basketball games. They instilled the importance of rebounding and gave him the confidence to take off offensively, but Providence fans hoped that over the next two years Greedy would take the same level of interest on the defensive end, with a little more James Posey and a little less Paul Westhead to his game. Amazingly, a 20/10 performer had as much room to grow as anyone on the roster (a roster that is looking woefully thin up front now once again) but PC fans will never get the opportunity to see if this coaching staff could instill a winner’s mentality in him, not simply a scorer’s.

Proponents of Greedy will point to the amazing numbers, the lack of depth in the frontcourt now that he and two other big men have moved on, the room for improvement in his game and recognize this as a huge loss.

Detractors viewed him as a turnstile defender, capable of putting up huge numbers, but not doing so in the context of a winning style of play. What good are 19 points if you give up 25?

Then there will be those who look deeper and see this as a lost opportunity, not only for next year’s team or Peterson himself, but an opportunity to see if Keno Davis and his staff could help him make the same jump defensively as he made offensively this past year.

One of the most intriguing subplots to next season was going to be how Keno and Co. will respond to such a porous defensive year, with many eyeing Peterson as exhibit A of a kid who had enough athletic ability to defend, but never got around to it. Another year of lackadaisical defense would have been an indictment on both the player and his staff. Now we’ll never know.

We’ll also never know how a kid who finished second in the Big East in rebounding and fourth in scoring would have improved offensively. There was certainly room to. Perhaps if he bumped his 47% free throw shooting up to 70 and continued to work on his handle he could have been a 24 point per game scorer.

He was the first Friar to average a double double since Michael Smith dominated the boards in the mid-90s, but he’ll never be remembered as an all time great at Providence. Maybe some day future generations of Providence fans will look at the numbers and ask how he fell under the radar of all timers at PC. They’ll question how a kid who put up 38 and 17 in the Big East Tournament as a sophomore and had 29 and 20 against Rutgers end his career as little more than a footnote in the annals of Providence basketball history.

Those us of who were there for it, saw the Greedy show and will remember a kid who had to have put in countless hours on a jump shot to turn himself into a 37% three point shooter. We’ll remember him as perhaps the most explosive dunker in PC history and his truly great games at Providence, not the Big East Tournament stat grab, but the domination of a big UConn frontcourt and his devouring of a strong Pittsburgh defense from 18 feet in during a heart-breaking road loss.

The Pitt game will always be the gold standard for those who watched and will remember Peterson. He was efficient, took good shots, the Friars played at the perfect pace and nearly pulled off a massive upset on the road. He defended some. He was only a sophomore and the hope was the message was finally sinking in. He had two seasons to up his offensive efficiency and turn himself into a suitable defender. The potential was there for him to be great.

A few months later his Providence career is over and there are some who would argue his teammates aren’t devastated with losing their star.

Perhaps the departure of Peterson is indeed addition by subtraction. It’s becoming more and more clear that there were plenty of headaches on last season’s roster and the fastest way to rebuild a program is to bring in kids who are committed to rebuilding it with you.

The loss of two disgruntled JUCO players was expected, the criminal case against Johnnie Lacy and James Still shocking, but Greedy Peterson moving on is the first roster move that actually impacts the roster. When five players leave your program and only the fifth to do so had any on court impact, it illustrates the lack of depth in Providence a season ago.

Factor in graduating seniors Sharaud Curry and Brian McKenzie and it looks to be an issue that Keno Davis has to overcome once again in 2010-11.

Friar fans get knocked for not being a patient bunch, but unless PC gets unusual contributions from freshmen next season they will have to be so once again. Suddenly, Marshon Brooks, Vincent Council, Duke Mondy, Bilal Dixon, and Ray Hall are the only returning contributors.

I looked forward to seeing Peterson’s development. I wasn’t confident that he would become a two-way player at Providence, but I was interested in seeing how it all played out. Greedy Peterson leaves Providence as a footnote, a monster statistical year in the midst of a losing season for a guy who virtually played one season in Providence. You become memorable by winning and you win by playing both sides of the ball. Greedy played one way in his one season. That’s his legacy.